


This is How I Show My Love

by Black_Hole_of_Procrastination



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:23:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7318753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Hole_of_Procrastination/pseuds/Black_Hole_of_Procrastination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Loras asks Jaime to take on a sparring partner other than Ser Illyn Payne, things don’t turn out the way he planned. (Set in the same universe as my fic 'That Deathless Death')</p>
<p>Originally Written for the 'Seven Hells' Game of Ships Challenge</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is How I Show My Love

Loras stares in horror at the mottled purple skin that runs along the length of Jaime’s ribs.

_I’m going to kill Garlan._

In truth, it is Loras who is at fault. It was he who suggested Jaime take up Garlan as a sparring partner over that butcher Payne. (Loras had made the mistake of first suggesting himself for the position, but that had only set Jaime bitter and angry and sulking).

“Garlan will not speak of it to anyone, ser,” Loras had coaxed. “You have my word.”

Loras knew that his brother would keep his silence for honor’s sake.

_If only that honor was enough to stay Gar’s hand from beating on a crippled man,_ Loras thinks sourly, spotting even more bruising on Jaime’s upper arm. No doubt Jaime would argue he was glad Garlan did not coddle him in the yard.

_Stubborn ass._

It was a blow to Jaime’s pride to even agree to it in the first place. He is impossible when it comes to his hand. He won’t scarcely touch Loras with the missing appendage, and becomes pricklier than Gran when it’s so much as mentioned.

It is only one of many things that hangs unspoken between them.

Loras reaches out to examine the wound on Jaime’s side but Jaime shrinks from his touch, his breath coming out as a sharp hiss between his teeth.

“You need a maester, ser.”

Jaime scowls.

“The old man has come and gone already. It is nothing,” he dismisses, batting away Loras’s hands. “And if this is what you mean to do, you can march yourself back the way you came. I won’t have you hovering over me, making a fuss as if you were a nursemaid and I your charge.” Jaime pauses an instant before giving the younger knight a significant look. “Unless there is some other purpose that brings you to my door.”

There is no mistaking the heat behind those green eyes, but now is not the time.

Loras is set to scold him, to play the ‘nursemaid’ if needs be, but Jaime is already reaching for him.

“Jaime–”

“Don’t,” Jaime warns. “I’m not made of glass.”

As if to prove this, Jaime tries again to draw Loras into an embrace, but stops with a grimace when he stretches too far.

“I suppose I should have expected as much when I took an old man into my bed,” Loras observes dryly, watching the careful way Jaime favors his uninjured side.

For a moment Loras fears he has gone too far, but then Jaime barks out a laugh.

“Impertinent whelp!”

Jaime manages to cuff his ear and gingerly pull him into a kiss in almost the same motion. Loras can feel the laughter on Jaime’s lips as they press firmly to his own, and it sends his heart racing. This is still new. Kissing Jaime. Laughing with Jaime.

It sometimes seems they’ve done everything backwards. They’ve been fucking for months, Jaime pulling him into every shadowed corner of the Red Keep to press him to a wall or bend him over a table. A need satisfied. Fucking without feeling. It’s what Loras wanted. After Renly, he wouldn’t… _he couldn’t_. Not again.

But something has changed. Loras is not certain how or when, but it is no longer just anger and the ache of loneliness that draws them together.

Jaime has begun to linger after they’ve coupled, sated and smiling over a shared cup of wine.

Sometimes he tells Loras stories. Tales of Gerold Hightower and Arthur Dayne and Barristan Selmy. Of men Loras has worshipped from the cradle. (Loras would include Jaime’s own name is among their number, though he would never admit as much to Jaime himself).

Sometimes it is Loras who talks. He speaks of home. Of Highgarden. Of happier times. He says nothing of his days squiring at Storm’s End, and Jaime never asks. He is grateful for that.

Sometimes Jaime lingers long enough that he is ready for another go. Loras loves the frenzied way they first fuck, Jaime fierce and near desperate in his need for him, but it is always slower, always _sweeter_ the second time round. (It is those second couplings that Loras thinks back on when he is alone in his cell in the White Sword Tower, cock in hand and head full of Jaime).

Loras is not sure what to call this thing that is between them.

They are sworn brothers, yes, but the brotherhood that kindles between them now is something else. It is not love. Loras is young but he knows well what it is to love and be loved. No, what is between them is something lesser, a fondness perhaps, but it is more than Loras had ever thought to have again and he means hold onto it.

It is with thoughts of this newfound tenderness that exists between them that Loras pulls away from Jaime to kneel at his feet. Jaime is stripped to the waist but still wears the rest of his Kingsguard armor.

Loras sets to unbuckling a greaves on one leg. He’s not done so since he was Renly’s squire and it takes him a moment to remember how to loosen the straps.

Jaime tries to pull away, a sharp word on the tip of his tongue, Loras is sure.

“Let me,” Loras pleads before Jaime can open his mouth. He wants to do this for him. He needs to.

The older knight frowns, but Loras catches the way his eyes soften ever so slightly.

Jaime gives a stiff nod and Loras returns to his task. He smiles when he feels Jaime’s fingers begin to card through his hair.

He does not mind playing the squire. Jaime has been humbled enough today. It is only fair Loras humble himself a bit too.

The next morning, Loras holds nothing back. He knocks his brother to the ground a half-dozen times in the yard. By the sixth go around, the normally cheerful Garlan is red-faced, winded, and scowling.

“I’m through,” he pronounces, when Loras helps him to stand from where he lies on the flat of his back. Loras watches as Garlan tosses his sword to a squire and sullenly makes his way back to the keep. An afternoon of grousing to Leonette would no doubt set him to rights.

Satisfied, Loras casts a quick glance across the yard to where he knows Jaime is running drills with some of the men. He catches the Lord Commander’s eye for an instant, and a smile, so brief Loras is not certain he did not imagine it, twists Jaime’s mouth.

Loras smiles back.


End file.
